The Arkansaw traveler., 1887-07-09
AN AMERICAN LITERATURE.
Boston Globe.

Boston Globe.
 Literature is but the record in it's highest form of human life and expe- rience at its various stages and in the different degrees. While a call has been increasing for the birth of dis tinctively American literature, it has so far in our history failed to put in that robust appearance so fondly de- sired. We have the sublimest and most varied scenery to inspire express ion ill imaginative minds, and we are endowed with a conglomerate and as yet unclassified society; but neither has thus far satisfied the requirements that usually accompany the ideal lit- erary standard. We are apt to forget that even the presence ot noble nat ural scenery excites no special thought or emotion without the vital adjunct and occupancy of an adapted human life to give it expression. The finest landscape is dead until man makes his appearance in it.
 We have all along been looking i'm patiently for a national literature to display itself in the accepted role of versitication and fiction, and have cod- dled ourselves into the belief that it was fast coming along to full and virile growth; when on a sudden the real thing gives unmistakable evi- dence of its coming in an entirely un- expected quarter. That is to say, while all eyes have been expectantly turned to the fast multiplying number of native poets and novelists, the long, awaited phenomenon appears ill the form of social and economic discussions. All this time we have been aggregat- ing our numbers and forces for the so- lution of the greatest problem ever given to mortals to carry to a solu- tion. Now we begin to discover the urgent need of classifying, analyzing, arranging, and philosophizing. It strikes us that here is the opening scene ill the existence of our national literature. It is something that springs, as it should, from the life itself of the people. It proceeds &C., cording to the recognized principles of natural evolution.
 So then, if we were to be asked off hand to say what are the indubitable symptoms of the birth and being of distinctive American literature, we should decidedly answer that they are to be seen in the outbreak of expres- sion from the brightest and best equip ped minds on what are called economic themes, including the real, restless, developing life of people who are to continue to dety ordinary description for considerable time to come-for generations certainly, and perhaps for more than a century. The modern world is world of transition and change. The slumber of the middle ages is completely broken. Science inspires now in place of theology. One nation is emptying itself into an other, making an entirely new com pound of character What rulers inn agine they are going to accomplish by the old method of war is being accom- plished in different way under their very eyes while they are making their warlike preparations. Violence is being silently supplanted by the pro- gress of peace and comity. So that when the monarchies of the earth go it will be by reason of actual dry rot .there will be no living sap left in them. The boasted and blasphemous divine right of kings will fade away in the blaze of the new light of popular 
 Here is the true field of our nascent literature, to be of wholly | new kind in the history of human lit erature, and making thoroughly new departure. We may think the de- scription too confining, and it better betits the purely economic department of general literature; but ripening ex- perience, in our opinion, will disclose the fact that it was this discussion of the new questions of our unparalleled national life that furnished at once the germ and the foundation for all that was to come after. A nasty glance over the topics treated in our popular magazines for the current month should be enough to imbed this view in the conviction. In the Atlantic Monthly occur articles on 'The Theory of the Social Compact" and "The Completed Work of the Federal Convention" In the Century IS one on Education and Social Pro- yress" and on "The Chemistry of food and Nutrition" Scra6nes's con- tains paper on "An Uncommercial Republic" and another on "The Ethics of Democracy" In Ha,per's is to be found paper on 1.-The Growth of and one on "American Railway Legislation" The Forum nas one on False Notions of Govern nent," one on Capital Punishment" md one on "The Control of the Pa ,ific," besides another on "Railway Passes and the Public" The North Ames1can Revtesc presents an article ,n Parties and Independents and